There is a long-standing need in the farming industry for stable, water-soluble fertilizer compositions that provide simultaneous delivery of water and mineral nutrients to crops. These water-soluble fertilizer compositions should demonstrate stability when subjected to standard formulation and storage practices and rapid nutrient release when used in standard fertilizer composition. To achieve this rapid release profile, a “fertigation” process was developed to circumvent problems encountered with broadcasting, or direct application of a fertilizer composition to topsoil, such as inconsistent nutrient absorption by roots of plants that have different distances from the area of application and/or destructive compression of soil beds by heavy farming equipment used to spread fertilizer composition, particularly over large areas, such as those of large farms.
While conventional fertigation was designed to be a viable addition to the means of delivery of mineral nutrients to crops, it is not without some limitations. For example, fertilizer compositions comprising binders and other nutrient-carrying materials well-suited for topical application as granules are less suited for similar purposes when dissolved in water. Once dissolved in water, and thereby liberated from binders, components of many fertilizer compositions react with each other and provide new, water-insoluble materials that precipitate from the solution at different rates. This phenomenon can result in a reduction in the efficiency of water and nutrient delivery because of operational issues, such as, for example, clogging of the fertigation equipment. Also, fertilizer compositions useful for broadcasting can have limited solubility in water. Thus, there is an existing need in the fertilizer delivery arts for economical fertigation compositions which do not inhibit fertigation processes by clogging fertigation equipment.